Category: killing your darlings

Constance – an update

On By TomIn Achievement, author honesty, author ideas, beta readers, editing, General, Insight, killing your darlings, Novel, reading, self-publishing, thriller, work in progress, writing2 Comments

Constance may mean ‘steadfast’, but for me, she’s meant an abundance of work.

In the summer of 2021, I came up with the idea of Crusader (DS Jason Knight), and from the outset, the story flowed well. I introduced Constance (DC Constance Armitage), as his sidekick early on, and the partnership worked, so I was delighted. My joy was premature, because within a few months I realised that the partner was taking centre stage more than I’d intended.

As I wrote in my blog post, Killing Your Darlings, I was compelled to make a few changes to the story. Rather than waste what was effectively a story within a story, I removed three complete chapters and several other passages from the manuscript. I titled the file Constance, and put it aside.

After a year of hard work, including the usual literary surgery following beta reports, I published Crusader in March 2023.

I worked on other projects for a couple of weeks, just as I’d done between major edits. When I finally began to devote my time to Constance, I already had three chapters and the framework of two more. With a sense of relief, I charged on and the tale unfolded, but like Crusader, I felt there was something wrong. I was rewriting the same tale, but with Constance’s point of view.

I deleted whole chapters and created a framework to guide me before I started the rewrite. It was the single most important decision I’d made, apart from the one to perform the rewrite. Once again, the words flowed, but this time, I went off on a tangent with the first part of the story. It was August 2023 when I finally got my act together.

Constance is now ‘resting’ before I print the story and perform a major red pen edit. At present, the tale stands at 97, 000 words which I’d be happy to keep if all goes well with my revisions. For those interested in beta reading the manuscript for me, I aim to have it ready for mid-March.

I produced the original simple cover with the red background so that I had something to work on, and in the past couple of days I amended it to reflect the main part of the story. To get rapid, and trusted feedback, I posted my latest idea on the Indie Author Support and Discussion (IASD) group, on Facebook. It didn’t take long to find out that my efforts were off track.

I returned to the source I use for graphics and found a suitable model I’d never seen on there before. Not only did she look more like my idea of Constance, she had a weapon similar to one of those used by my character. I posted on Facebook with the IASD group again, and to my delight, friend and fellow author, Sharon Brownlie of Aspire Book Covers came to my rescue with a couple of tweaks. After reapplying the title and author name, I was satisfied with the cover.

Now, I’ll continue with other projects until my next full manuscript edit.

As always, comments are welcome, and thank you for reading.

Crusader … is available

On By TomIn Achievement, author honesty, author ideas, beta readers, collections, editing, General, Insight, killing your darlings, Novel, paperback, paperbacks, Promotion, reading, relaxation, Review, self-publishing, series, thriller, work in progress, writing

Crusader is available as an eBook, and the paperback edition will follow soon.

Once again, I immersed myself in the story, aiming to create not only believable, but memorable characters and situations. There are only so many plots irrespective of the genre, so it’s the duty of the author to create twists and turns to develop the tale from the first word to the last.

Writers often create a formula which works for their readers, and while this is acceptable, it is the differences that will spell success or failure for an individual story.

Another area that can affect how a new tale is received is the length. My first draft of this story ended at 120k words. It took a lot of work to reduce it to 112k words which is how it went out to my beta readers. In response to their feedback, and because I wanted to tighten up the narrative, I reduced the content to 106k words.

As explained in a previous post, my secondary character was taking centre stage too often, so I removed whole chapters, and Constance deserved her own story. You’ll see from my Work in Progress that her tale will be the sequel to Crusader.

For those of you interested in such things, a handful of characters from the Beyond The Law and Codename titles play cameo roles in Crusader, and they earn the right to be there. I may get Constance: Crusader – Part 2, underway, but I’m in no rush. It has to feel like a different hero taking the lead, and to create that, I must leave the Jason and Constance team alone for a short while.

If you’ve never read my crime thrillers, this would be a good one to try. If you have read my work, I’m confident that you’ll enjoy Crusader.

Thank you, once again for valuable input from fellow author, Carmen Lopez, and from IASD authors: Lesley Hayes, Barbara Speake, Penny Luker, and Ruth Coulson.

My thanks also to those who take the time to read my work, and this writing blog.

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